1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer data search, and more particularly to a method of providing one or more color attributes to items to make them searchable by color.
2. Description of Related Art
One advantage of online shopping is that it allows users to easily search and compare merchandise on various seller websites. In addition to enabling users to search products by product categories and/or brands, some websites have a search by color feature to help users to locate products more quickly.
Existing search by color techniques often provide unsatisfactory results, because they are based on text, and not on actual color. In one example, a user may be looking for a pair of green shoes and may input keywords “green” and “shoes” in the search box on the screen of an online shopping system. The system may search text descriptions of products for the keywords “green” and “shoes,” and then may provide a list of all products whose text descriptions include the words “green” and “shoes.” The list may mistakenly include Green Cross™ brand brown shoes, because the brand includes the word “green” and the brand name is a part of the text description of the shoes. Consequently, the list may be longer than it should be, and may be inaccurate.
Another problem of existing search by color techniques is that different online shopping websites may refer to the same color using different words. For example, different websites may refer to the color maroon as “dark red,” “crimson,” or “reddish brown”. The use of different names may prevent complete identification of matching colors, or may again provide inaccurate results (e.g. when searching for brown items, something that is “reddish brown,” but which is actually maroon, may be identified).
One result of the use of different syntax is that a user may describe a color differently from the way a website may. For example, if a user inputs “dark green shoes” into the search box of an online shopping website, but the website does not differentiate among shades of colors and does not include words “light” or “dark” in product text descriptions, the website may return results that show green shoes, but not dark green shoes. Consequently, a pair of shoes perfectly matching the user's requirements may be erroneously excluded from the list of shoes provided to the user.
A further problem of existing search by color techniques is that not all product text descriptions have explicit color information. If a website defines a Gucci™ handbag as “signature GG fabric,” this handbag may not be included in the list provided to a user looking for a light brown handbag, although it is known that the color of the signature GG fabric is light brown.
Therefore, a search by color method providing more accurate search results would be desirable.